Tagged: climate change

Flight to nowhere sends the wrong message in climate crisis - Planetary Ecology

Robert McLachlan • Sep 25, 2020 •

• climate change,
• flights,
• quantas,
• tourism

Qantas Airlines’ 7-hour “flight to nowhere”, that sold out in 10 minutes with prices from A$787 to A$3787, seemed like a sick joke to climate advocates. Apart from the waste of fuel and the pointless emissions, passengers would be able to see first-hand, from a plane just like those that carried coronavirus around the world so effectively, the sweeping devastation … Read More

Arctic sea ice is being increasingly melted from below by warming Atlantic water - Guest Work

Guest Author • Sep 24, 2020 •

• Arctic sea ice,
• climate change,
• sea ice

Tom Rippeth, Bangor University Arctic sea ice today (white) is covering a much smaller area than in 1980-2010 (orange line). National Snow and Ice Data Center, University of Colorado, Boulder, CC BY-SA Each September, scientists like me look out for the point when the Arctic’s meagre summer fizzles out and sea ice begins to grow once more. This point … Read More

Humans ignite almost every wildfire that threatens homes - Unsorted

Guest Author • Sep 23, 2020 •

• arson,
• bush fires,
• climate change,
• wildfire

Nathan Mietkiewicz, National Ecological Observatory Network and Jennifer Balch, University of Colorado Boulder CC BY-ND Summer and fall are wildfire season across the western U.S. In recent years, wildfires have destroyed thousands of homes, forced hundreds of thousands of people to evacuate and exposed tens of millions to harmful smoke. Wildfires are a natural disturbance for these regions, but when … Read More

Humans have dealt with plenty of climate variability - Climate: Explained

Guest Author • Sep 23, 2020 •

• climate change,
• interglacial,
• last glacial maximum,
• sea level rise,
• Temperature

Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz How much climate variability have humans dealt with since we evolved and since we started settling (Neolithic … Read More

New Zealand will make big banks, insurers and firms disclose their climate risk. It’s time other countries did too - Guest Work

Guest Author • Sep 18, 2020 •

• climate change,
• climate risk,
• finance,
• Zero Carbon Bill

Ivan Diaz-Rainey, University of Otago This week’s announcement of mandatory disclosures of climate-related risks for companies and financial institutions is arguably the New Zealand government’s most significant climate policy — even more so than the Zero Carbon Act itself. The new policy will come into effect in 2023. It requires all banks, asset managers and insurance companies with … Read More

Will the tropics eventually become uninhabitable? - Climate: Explained

Guest Author • Sep 16, 2020 •

• climate change,
• equator,
• humidity,
• Temperature,
• tropics

Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz What is the impact of temperature increases in the tropics? How likely is it that regions along … Read More

Methane is short-lived in the atmosphere but leaves long-term damage - Climate: Explained

Guest Author • Sep 09, 2020 •

• Agriculture,
• climate change,
• greenhouse gas emissions,
• methane

Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz Methane is a shorter-lived greenhouse gas – why do we average it out over 100 years? By … Read More

Sunspots do affect our weather, a bit, but not as much as other things - Climate: Explained

Guest Author • Sep 02, 2020 •

• climate change,
• solar activity,
• solar cycle,
• Sun,
• sun spots

Climate Explained is a collaboration between The Conversation, Stuff and the New Zealand Science Media Centre to answer your questions about climate change. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, please send it to climate.change@stuff.co.nz Are we headed for a period with lower Solar activity, i.e. sunspots? How long will it last? … Read More

How climate change made the melting of New Zealand’s glaciers 10 times more likely - Guest Work

Guest Author • Aug 04, 2020 •

• climate change,
• glaciers,
• NIWA,
• Southern Alps

Lauren Vargo, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Glaciers around the world are melting — and for the first time, we can now directly attribute annual ice loss to climate change. We analysed two years in which glaciers in New Zealand melted the most in at least four decades: 2011 and 2018. Both years were characterised … Read More

New Zealand wants to build a 100% renewable electricity grid, but massive infrastructure is not the best option - Guest Work

Guest Author • Jul 31, 2020 •

• climate change,
• electricity,
• emissions,
• hydro power,
• infrastructure,
• renewable electricity

Janet Stephenson, University of Otago A proposed multibillion-dollar project to build a pumped hydro storage plant could make New Zealand’s electricity grid 100% renewable, but expensive new infrastructure may not be the best way to achieve this. New Zealand’s electricity generation is already around 80% renewable, with just over half of that provided by hydro power. The … Read More